Mitch McConnell demands unity on fiscal issues

He sees a winning political message heading into the fall before the 2014 midterms. | AP Photo

But signs of GOP fiscal solidarity surfaced the week before the recess as all Republicans but one acted to defeat the sole appropriations bill Democrats brought to the Senate floor, a vote that McConnell called “symbolically significant.” McConnell openly whipped against the transportation bill that Senate Democrats believed best encapsulated their message on jobs and the economy.

“We committed to the American people that we would reduce spending over the next 10 years by $2.1 trillion,” McConnell said last week. “There’s much left to be done to get our financial house in order. But boy, you don’t make any progress in that direction by signaling to the American people that you’re not serious about the things you already agreed to do on a bipartisan basis.”

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Just one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, supported the bill after five GOP-ers had voted for it in committee. Democrats said they were furious; then they capitalized on the opportunity to rip Republicans as obstructionist for nearly half an hour before Congress headed home for August.

“A lot of people across the country are watching this. And they’re disgusted,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said after the vote. “I hope that the time back home that we’re going to have will convince Republicans to come back to the table.”

Republicans working directly with the White House on fiscal issues held firm with leadership on the funding measure, even after previously bucking the party line on immigration and nominees. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has been in the middle of nearly everything the Senate has done for the past two months, attempting to craft compromise, move bills and nominations and stop gridlock. He wouldn’t budge on spending.

“We made a commitment when we passed the Budget Control Act to make an effort to start living within our means,” Corker said. “This bill breaks that promise.”

Corker is among the central characters in a long-winded Senate drama that had Republicans all over the place ahead of recess. Fourteen senators broke with GOP leadership to support a comprehensive immigration bill, many of whom then banded together to craft a deal with Democrats to prevent a historic rules change by approving a slate of controversial presidential nominees. Strong bipartisan majorities also supported the Internet sales tax and farm legislation, putting large groups of Republicans on opposite sides of those bills.

The numbers bear out the Republican dilemma. According to party unity scores from OpenCongress, the average Senate Republican voted with the party 87 percent of the time while Democrats, on average, supported their party 95 percent of the time. It’s a continuation of a trend that has made Senate Democrats the more unified caucus since 2007, when they took the majority, according to Brookings research.

The Republicans with some of the lowest GOP unity scores are the same who have played deal maker on immigration and the nuclear option nominees compromise: Think names like Graham and McCain and moderates like Collins and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mark Kirk of Illinois. Collins and Murkowski vote against their party about 40 percent of the time, Graham and McCain about 20 percent and Kirk about 30 percent, according to OpenCongress.

Democrats are generally together during roll call votes but less so on fiscal matters. The ten Democrats most likely to vote with Republicans are all from red states, including those running for reelection, like Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

Hagan, Pryor, Begich and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) all opposed Murray’s budget resolution this year that broke the BCA budget caps. So did every Republican, another data point the GOP leadership hopes will translate into a Republican consensus on spending this fall.